Liberal writer Ed Kilgore finally admits why:
[P]rogressives should be quite aggressive in welcoming this debate. They have plenty of ammunition, including the passionate arguments of the father of the federal estate tax, Theodore Roosevelt. And they really do need to counter the mythology of the small struggling business or farm being taken away by a socialistic Uncle Sam. This is all a cover for the real beneficiaries, the wealthiest people in America, who hardly need the kind of protection against taxes in death they’ve managed to secure in life. Large inheritances are and have always been an enormous factor in long-term inequality, and an offense to the presumed morality of capitalism, in which material rewards follow market utility or economic “virtue,” not birth lotteries.
Beyond that, it’s fun, if not especially charitable, to mock the tears of the undeserving heir at the indignity of having to share his or her windfall with the commonwealth.
There ya have it. They just love the fact they can stick it to those Americans who work hard, are successful, and become wealthy. The best way to stick it to them? Tax them on their income in life, and then tax them AGAIN in death.
The successful should be ashamed for their success and their children should not benefit from it either.
Embarrassing.
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